Overstepping the boundaries

It is grim, but not a fairy story. Europe awakes after a long sleep and, disoriented, fails to recognise its surroundings. There is much that is still familiar: the capital cities are where they have always been, road and rail communications are still working and Angela Merkel is still in charge. Nevertheless, everything is the same but very different. All changed by one single act: Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

To general surprise and shock Vladimir Putin’s land grab has derailed an apparently stable world order whose permanence had been taken for granted in western capitals for more than 20 years. Having believed that 21st-century geopolitics are firmly grounded in collective respect for rules and international law, western governments are now being forced to re-examine their assumptions about Russia’ s approach to foreign policy.

“Russia is acting much more like an adversary than a friend,” says the head of the United States and NATO’s forces in Europe, warning last weekend that the build-up of Russia’s forces on Ukraine’s eastern border is “very, very sizeable and very, very ready”. Norbert Röttgen, chairman of the Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee, was still reeling from shock and spoke for many across Europe when he confessed last week that all his assumptions about the post-Cold War world were in tatters. If someone had asked him a couple of months ago whether Russia was a threat to European stability, “I would have dismissed the idea out of hand.” Now Putin’s Russia “seems to be writing a new chapter in a book we thought we had closed a long time ago”. The Russian president is “openly affirming that he is not willing to play by our rules of international relations”.

Crushingly, the challenge facing western governments begins with having to accept that the Ukraine has lost Crimea and that ipso facto national borders in Europe can be forcibly redrawn. The question now is whether Putin’s ambitions are satisfied. Does he feel that he has gained the respect for Russia he craves or does he need to make a complete meal of Ukrainian sovereignty? Should we, then, expect Russia to foment internal disorder in the east of the country to justify another military intervention in defence of ethnic Russians?

US and NATO leaders are beginning to realise they need a red lines strategy that sets behavioural barriers for Moscow. The first task is to change mindset and recognise that Putin, who once proclaimed the vision of a “common European house” has now burned it down. But what could this mean? After Crimea, is there now a real danger that Putin will scoop up the ethnic Russian enclaves in Moldova’s Transnistria region together with Abkhazia and South Ossettia in Georgia? Inevitably, strategic planning in the NATO alliance must acknowledge that there is a much greater risk of military conflict with Russia than previously thought. If the Kremlin is to be deterred from playing fast and loose with international law in spurious defence of Russian-speaking minorities, it will need to be convinced that the stakes are high.

In the meantime, political isolation, though imperative, will do nothing to contain Russia. Effective economic sanctions are needed to impose real costs on the Russian economy. Those so far adopted by the US and European Union – travel bans and asset freezes for three or four dozen of Putin’s ruling elite – are inflicting pain but will not be decisive. Moscow will retaliate by imposing crippling gas-price rises on Ukraine and implying that Germany and eastern Europe should not take Russian gas supplies for granted. A tit- for-tat game is in prospect with Putin gambling on Europe’s extreme reluctance to levy really costly sanctions. De-escalation – the current objective of sanctions policy – will be as difficult to achieve as it is to define.

This is a defining moment for the EU and, particularly for Germany. The country’s instincts are anything but martial and foreign policy is determinedly driven by economic interest. An internal debate on whether Germany needs to assume more international responsibilities has been meandering inconclusively since last September’s elections. It now has real meaning for Germany and for Europe. If Berlin is fundamentally indulgent and confirms Putin’s view that its real economic interests will not be put on the line, then short-term policies will be weak and ineffective.

Angela Merkel is the only European leader with the power to ensure that the EU’s short-term policy has enough backbone to defend red lines. But she also has to encourage other heads of government to reshape medium-term policies towards Russia. The need to diversify energy supplies is a no-brainer. Europe takes 30% of its gas supplies from Russia and should take much less in future. Technology transfers and arms sales to Moscow must also be reviewed. Most difficult of all, perhaps, is the need to spend more on defence and security. Neither the US nor Europe wants a return to the Cold War in Europe, but if you set red lines you must ultimately be prepared to defend them.